


North Star

by doingthemost, fishyspots



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Character Study, Gen, contrasts, two sunshine people in love with the same girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28063374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doingthemost/pseuds/doingthemost, https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishyspots/pseuds/fishyspots
Summary: "Promise me we'll stay in touch. Okay?"A look at the two times that Ted Mullens leaves Twyla Sands in Schitt's Creek.
Relationships: Theodore "Ted" Mullens & Twyla Sands, Theodore "Ted" Mullens/Alexis Rose (mentioned)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21





	North Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [singsongsung](https://archiveofourown.org/users/singsongsung/gifts).



_without your balance and lift,_  
_I'm lost and adrift_  
\- "Nothing Without You;" Theory of Relativity

***

**then.**

Her head's spinning. 

She's never drank this much — "It's not even _that much_ ," Stevie near-yells into her ear, hands on Twyla's shoulders and her breath potent, eyes gleaming even at nighttime as she pulls back and away — and the moon's full above them, dizzying and clear. 

She tilts her head back, her gaze roving from star to star, seeking out constellations, a little bit of repeatable sense from the vastness of the universe as it stretches across the horizon, then startles as a familiar voice breaks through her thoughts.

"The North Star's that way."

A hand enters her vision, and she turns to follow it. And there it is: big and bright, steadying in its certainty, overwhelming in its infinity. 

"Thanks." She doesn't even have to look to know who's next to her; she'd know him anywhere. "Are you having a good night, Ted?"

"Yeah!" He's close enough for his arm to graze against hers as he lifts his cup, taking a swig of beer. "What can I say, I'm... having a _field_ day." 

The sound of her laughter is swallowed up by the nighttime and the revelry from the rest of their graduating class, elsewhere at their grad night, but she hears Ted's chuckle nonetheless. 

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you." She turns, tilting her head up; she's still not used to this, looking _up_ to catch Ted's gaze. 

She supposes neither of them are the little kids who used to push each other on the swing set, and they're over a decade removed from the neighbours who'd walk each other home before the Sands family moved to the other side of town, but the contrast of Ted before her and the Ted in her memories is sharp enough for her chest to ache. 

"I wanted to say –" He grins down at her, all floppy blond hair and sheepish eyes. "– I'm really gonna miss you next year." 

His button-down is creased over his shoulders, rumpled like the dress she's wearing herself, the one she'd saved up for with her tips from the Café. She's hugging him before she even realizes, her face against his chest and one of his shirt buttons pressed against her cheek. 

"I'm going to miss you, too." There's that ache in her chest again, and despite the alcohol and second-hand weed she's inhaled, she knows its cause: everything is about to change, irrevocably so. "I might – we might never see each other again."

He tightens his arms around her, and she looks up at his face just in time to see his grin soften into something a little more tender. "Ouch. I didn't know you were ready to get rid of me _that_ quick."

"You know what I mean." She's never known anything more certain than the fact that Ted has always been destined to find his way out. But she doesn't begrudge him his path, or hold it against him; if anyone deserves it, it's Ted. "You'll go off and be a vet somewhere big and important. Maybe you'll work with _celebrity pets_." 

He laughs, and she feels it in his chest. "I don't know about that. But…" He pauses briefly, searching for the perfect rejoinder. "Anything's _paw_ -sible." 

"Well, if anything's _paw-sible_..." She steps back — it's easier to meet his eyes that way — and tilts her head, but she can't keep a straight face. "Promise me we'll stay in touch. Okay?"

"Yeah! Of course." He taps his cup against hers, and they both drink in a wordless toast. "I promise on the North Star and everything."

She tilts her head back up, and space settles back between them as they separate entirely, Ted mirroring her stance next to her. "I thought you didn't believe in astrology," she teases. 

"I believe in science," he returns on another laugh, nudging her with an elbow. "And this star just happens to be…" He waves his cup in the air, and a little bit sloshes out. "Y'know. The combination of the two." 

"Like you and me." 

"Exactly." 

This time, she doesn't need him to point it out. She finds the North Star again, focusing on its brightness and Ted's solid sureness next to her, and smiles.

***

**now.**

“I can’t believe you guys put that together,” Ted says for the tenth time. It’s not the first Jocelyn performance he’s seen — she took over for their drama teacher two years in a row when they were all in high school and managed to get the school to agree to _Cats_ both times — but it’s the first one where he left without any comments he had to work to bite back. And the first one that mercifully didn’t include prosthetic whiskers. He hadn’t made a secret of his desire to be a vet in high school, which made him an easy target for an overworked high school director when it came time to work on costumes for that show. If he never has to research ethical fur-like fabric again it will be too soon. 

“Aw,” Stevie makes an exaggerated face, the one that means she’s humoring him. It’s fine though, because he _nose_ that expression. She only brings it out when she’s masking some genuine emotion, so the compliment got through. Probably. “That’s really nice, Ted. But you know who won’t get itchy at your compliments? Your girlfriend.”

Ted rolls his eyes. Stevie’s got a new glow about her, but her self-preservation is still rattling around in there. “Alexis is grabbing us a drink. She was _wine_ -ing about the lack of good cabernet, so David let her grab something from the stash in their room.”

“That was nice of her,” Ted hears from behind him. He turns to see Twyla, makeup still caked around her eyes. 

Ted smiles at Twyla, entirely by reflex. “You were great tonight,” he says. “‘Two Ladies’ was so good.”

“Thanks,” Twyla says. “We worked really hard on that. But,” she shakes her head, hair loose and curling after she let it down from the show style, “we should be talking about you! You leave so soon; are you packed and everything already?”

“Oh, we really don’t need to do that,” Ted says, heat creeping up the back of his neck at the idea of too many people looking at him at once. He keeps thinking that he’s grown out of it, but he’s often proven wrong. “Besides, I won’t even be gone that long. I wouldn’t keep you and Alexis far from each other for longer than my assignment.” He bites his lip and decides to let himself lighten the mood. “I’m not that _shell_ -fish.”

Twyla smiles at him again, or still. He’s had a few beers even though he has to head out in less than an hour, caught up in celebrating with everybody and soaking in the feeling of so many people who know him for the last time in a while, so he’s losing track of the specifics of Twyla’s face. “You know that I’ll miss you too, right?” She says, something soft in her voice that makes him think of grass-stained jean shorts and the gritty sand under his old swing set. His mom dumped a bag of beads in there one summer and they’d spent entire afternoons sifting through it to unearth the entirely artificial treasure.

Ted breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth like Twyla taught him at all those yoga classes he went to once she started holding them at town hall a year or so back. “And you know that I will, too?”

Twyla pats his hand. Her palm is warm, matching the flush in her cheeks — she’s had a drink or two too, and they’re well-deserved — and there’s something wistful in her eyes. Ted doesn’t know how to approach it. Historically, that’s been his problem. He still can’t bring himself to broach this topic with Twyla, to tell her that she doesn’t have to stay here if she doesn’t want to. Years ago, when he first came back to open his practice, he thought that maybe he could get the words out, that he could tell Twyla that she could do anything. Be anything. He hopes that the idea gets through to her by the time he comes back. “I do know that.”

But this is enough for now. It has to be; he’s leaving in a matter of minutes. “Good."


End file.
